My name is MICHAEL F. HOUSEL, author of THE HYDE SEED, THE PERSONA #1 & #2; and MARK JUSTICE'S THE DEAD SHERIFF #4: PURITY. My short fiction is featured in RAVENWOOD, STEPSON OF MYSTERY #4 & #5; THE PURPLE SCAR #4; and THE PHANTOM DETECTIVE #2. My additional works can be found in Eighth Tower's DARK FICTION series and Main Enterprises' WHATEVER!; PULP FAN; MAKE MINE MONSTERS; SCI-FI SHALL NOT DIE; THE SCREENING ROOM; *PPFSZT!; and TALES FROM GREEK MYTHOLOGY.
Thursday, November 21, 2019
IANQU'S CIGARETTES: THE DUALITY OF INHALATION
Adarkah Ianqu's Cigarettes is a six-track, double-edged, experimental triumph, which represents the best and worst that comes from puffing away, but in the end, it all coughs up clean. Ianqu would have it no other way.
"Nude insects" is the intro: an epic track that's stripped of pretentious inhibition, drawing us in for the eternal extreme, by being both slow and full of mad esteem. The ambivalent sounds make this one the perfect host for the beautiful pangs that are to progress.
A grimy, death-driving trilogy is next: "todestrieb (people unit demix)"; "todescrieb (first approach)"; and plain ol' "todestrieb". These submissions represent (at least to my discerning ears) a soul-slipping uprising through smoky steam, followed by a descent into life's sooty underbelly, tipped by a long rest upon an unending, anguished grave. It's the fight that we like, the fight that we live and die for. The "todestrieb" trio comprises an anthem for those of us who want to drum away in a long, dark tunnel to ensure the masses never sleep, but of course, we're the ones who stay forever awake.
To mollify this clever contradiction, "nympho lover" swoops in: young and eerie, like all those seedy things we can't help but touch. Now bad blood screams through our veins, a poisonous surge that brings to mind Curtis Harrington's "Queen of Blood", where the seduction sure did look sublime, but has left us old and drained.
In the wake of this blissful depletion, Ianqu tosses us a dear "doom heretic": a sort of "Dune" messiah in reverse, where the savior at hand is more a spice-less madman, traveling plumes of cancerous hell. Should we do an about-face or continue to smolder within our makeshift ashtray? No matter which path we choose, our cut-short fate is fixed.
Each puff of Ianqu's "cigarettes" can make us choke and sputter in the most fulfilling ways. Inhale the burn of his addictive chain at
https://adarcahianku.bandcamp.com/album/cigarettes?fbclid=IwAR10Zs0lJU7PGCt6VgF65vaczFquOQfrWJafLW1i5pxFiUtnys_h-jPR3T0.
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